


Calling My Name And I Follow Just To Find You

by Tori_Scribbles



Series: I Wanna Get Better [1]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Is Gay, Families of Choice, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Medication, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Relationships, Post: 01x04 - The World In The Walls, Protective Eliot Waugh, Protective Margo Hanson, Self Destructive Behaviour, Self-Doubt, Sharing a Bed, Talks of Mental Institutions, blink and you miss it - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-07-01 01:53:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15764184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tori_Scribbles/pseuds/Tori_Scribbles
Summary: Quentin might have broken free of the illusion, but he can't break free of the memories. Luckily, he's not alone.





	Calling My Name And I Follow Just To Find You

**Author's Note:**

> Please read the tags.  
> This is set between 01x04 and 01x05. Who wouldn't be traumatised after the illusion that Q was stuck in? I hate how the show just sort of brushed that whole thing off. So...  
> Title comes from "I wanna get better" by the Bleachers

Eliot faltered halfway down the stairs, his hand ghosting over the bannister rail as his eyes came to rest on the window seat, or more specifically, the figure curled up on the window seat. Wrapped tightly in a blanket, Quentin was staring out of the window unseeing, a bottle of Margo’s top-shelf gin, hanging between his fingers.

Eliot stepped down the last few stairs, double checking the moonlit clock on the wall as he passed. Three am… it could be worse.

Insomnia wasn’t an uncommon thing in the Physical Cottage. Between shitty families and the trauma that magic brought, nightmares and general anxiety were a frequent occurrence, especially at night. Which was why, in turn, alcohol and drugs were just as frequent.

“Quentin?” Eliot called out, but despite his soft voice, Quentin jerked violently, as if someone had yelled in his ear and Eliot had to move quickly to save the bottle of gin, setting it on the table behind him before turning his attention back to the distressed first year.

“Eliot?” Quentin said, sounding dazed. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion as if he was only just realising where he was and who he was with.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Eliot asked, perching on the edge of the seat, slowly reaching out to comb a hand through the younger man’s blond hair. Quentin went rigid at the touch but as Eliot moved his fingers softly against his scalp, Quentin all but sagged against his hand and after a moment shook his head.

“Okay,” Eliot said, “that’s fine.”

They sat in silence for several moments, the ticking of the clock the only sound in the room.

Quentin sunk further against Eliot’s side and Eliot shifted slightly.

“Come on,” he murmured, “let’s get you upstairs. This seat isn’t comfy to pass out on, trust me.”

He shifted slightly, sliding his arm around Quentin’s waist to help shift him up. Quentin whined softly and kind of pathetically as the blanket slipped off of his shoulders.

“Bring it with you, alright,” Eliot said, helping him tug it back up around him, letting Quentin lean against him as they slowly walked across the common room.

“Why’re you doin’ this?” Quentin slurred, stumbling against the wall as Eliot tried to lead him up the stairs.

“What else am I supposed to do?” Eliot asked rhetorically, “I’m not going to just leave you here wallowing.”

“I don’t want to talk,” Quentin muttered.

“You don’t have to,” Eliot said again, catching Quentin’s hand to stop him pulling the picture off the wall as he stumbled. “But you don’t have to be alone either.”

“’M always alone.”

Eliot glanced across at him in concern, thinking about himself, Margo, Alice, Penny, even Kady and that Hedge Bitch Julia. Quentin never seemed to be alone. And Eliot told him that.

“It feels like I am,” Quentin said quietly, and Eliot was sure that if it wasn’t for the gin then none of this would be spoken. “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

The raw, but soft, pain in his voice made Eliot stop at the top of the stairs, which, admittedly, wasn’t the best place to stop when a traumatised drunk person was leaning against you, but Quentin falling down the stairs wasn’t what Eliot was worried about.

“I told you,” he said, turning away from the hallway that lead to Quentin’s bedroom and towards the other, “you’re not alone. No matter what happens you’re stuck with us.”

He reached out, pushing open the door to Margo’s room.

“Did you bring my—” Margo, sitting in bed where Eliot left her, faltered, “—drink.” She finished. “Eliot?”

“It’s been a rough day,” Eliot said softly, his eyes meeting hers, and she understood perfectly without an explanation. She shifted over to one side of the bed, adjusting the pillows before throwing back the duvet, patting the centre of the bed pointedly.

Eliot guided Quentin across the room, and between him and Margo, they managed to get him somewhat lying under the covers, still wrapped up in the blanket from the common room.

Eliot settled on Quentin’s other side, his hand drifting back to his hair, dragging his nails across his scalp as Margo curled up on his other side.

“Have you guys ever been to a psychiatric unit?” Quentin asked after a minute of calm silence.

Eliot’s fingers faltered for a second as he exchanged a worried look with Margo over Quentin’s head before he resumed the motion.

“No,” Eliot replied softly as Margo shook her head against Quentin’s shoulder.

“I have,” Quentin said, his eyes fixed on the ceiling as he spoke. “Did I not tell you why I got into Fillory books?”

“No,” Margo said.

“I was sixteen the first time.” Quentin said it so casually that it made Eliot’s heartbreak. “My brain just stopped. I couldn’t get out of bed or eat for days. It was the first time anyone noticed. But it’s always been like that. I was there for nearly two months. While I was there my dad brought me the Fillory books. I’d read them every day while I was there. It was what got me through that place. The second time was right after I left college and the third… the third time was days before I found this place.”

“Did they give you meds to take?” Margo asked and Eliot frowned. He’d never seen Quentin take anything stronger than an aspirin.

Quentin hummed an affirmative.

“Have you been taking them?” she pressed gently and Eliot’s frown deepened at the way Quentin hesitated.

“No,” he said. “Dean Fogg said I didn’t need them. He said that I felt alone and separated because I didn’t understand a part of what was inside of me.”

Eliot exchanged another look with Margo, this time anger clouded the concern. Eliot’s jaw clenched and he held Quentin a little tighter.

“Sweetie,” Margo started, hesitating for a second as she considered her words carefully, “magic and mental illness aren’t mutually exclusive.”

After all, there was a reason so many students went to the fountain and…

Eliot couldn’t bear to consider Quentin being one of those students. Just the brief thought of it made him feel sick to his stomach.

“How concerned should we be?” he asked, continuing to comb his fingers through his hair as if they were talking about their latest Magical History assignment.

“You don’t—”

Eliot’s hand drifted from Quentin’s hair to rest on the back of his neck and squeezed it slightly.

“Quentin, have you ever tried to hurt yourself before?”

The bluntness of the question seemed to make Quentin stop and he seemed to think better of lying to them.

“Not directly,” he said, his voice far away. “I just… forget to eat or move sometimes. My reactions are slower. I nearly set fire to my dad’s kitchen once, I put something in the oven and just… forgot about it until the smoke alarm went off. People just don’t notice so I just try and get on with it. Sometimes I don’t even notice until it’s too late.”

Eliot pressed a soft kiss to the top of Quentin’s unwashed hair and he silently vowed to keep a closer eye on him from now on.

“Well, I know a good fire extinguishing spell, so, we’re covered,” Margo said, seeming to try and fail to make the mood lighter.

“Jules and my dad were the only people who ever came and visited me. She was there for everything and I thought— _she put me back in there!”_ Quentin let out a heavy breath. “I believed it. I started believing it and I thought I was crazy and alone.”

“You’re not.” Eliot murmured against the top of his head. “None of it was true. It was all a lie.”

Quentin’s grip on Eliot’s hand tightened, his eyes filling with tears as years of pain came flooding back.

“I don’t want to go back there. I don’t ever want to go back in there,” Quentin cried and Eliot didn’t know if he was talking about going back to the Institution or going back inside his head, he also didn’t know if it was any different.

“Maybe you should,” Margo said, “go back, maybe not to that place, but find a different place, and a different counsellor. Talk to them about your meds and… well, everything.”

“They’ll just say I’m crazy too.”

“Not if you speak to a Magician,” Eliot said, remembering the psychiatrist he found last year when he considered getting clean. “Not all Magicians share the Dean’s archaic views. I know a guy.”

Margo gave him a curious look but didn’t say anything.

“But that,” Eliot said, “is a thing for tomorrow. Go to sleep, Q.”

.

Quentin woke briefly, tangled between two other sets of limbs, the hollow feeling inside of him was clouded by a warmth of safety. He smiled slightly blearily at the feeling before rolling back over, burying his face in Eliot’s shoulder and he let sleep draw him back in.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think? I'm lowkey considering making this a series.........  
> Find me on [tumbr?](http://purplepingupenguins.tumblr.com/)


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